What drives the decision to act with virtue when one faces an ethical challenge? Events occurring in social interactions pose moral queries that drive people to respond with ethical strength, or to turn away. To understand the role of values in motivating morally responsible behavior, we identify military managers’ reasons for action when faced with a wartime moral dilemma. We employ qualitative methods to reveal a network of interconnected values, reflecting inferences between them and paths serving as motivations for action. Our approach unpacks what lies behind values that drive virtuous decisions, which we test quantitatively. The laddering technique we employ also serves as a tool, shedding light on the cognitive backstage of ethical decision making. Helping managers become aware of their tacit assumptions will be useful to augment ethics training and management practice. Implications and suggestions for additional research are presented.
Millennials are a powerful workforce group and are quickly becoming established business leaders, consumers, and investors. Yet, millennials are often described as a uniformly homogeneous generation, despite mounting evidence of variances across their private and workplace behaviors, attitudes and preferences, and personal values. This article examines the personal value orientations of millennials in the Unites States, reporting consistencies, variations, and contrasts based on a large sample drawn from seven diverse universities. Results of this article suggest more similarities across a national population of millennials than differences, suggesting a national identity among American millennials. Practical implications of our findings and future research are discussed.
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